Dandelion Dreams - Debbie Ross
My life could never be described as a fairytale. A difficult forceps birth, a blood transfusion, gamy leg muscles and 6 weeks in an incubator were not an auspicious start. And that tended to set the tenet of my life. I wore callipers at night until I was 11 and had special shoes that marked me out for ‘special’ treatment at school (AKA bullying).
I was pretty accident prone through my teenage years, although our GP at the time kindly said I’d grow out of it - if I survived long enough!
I failed my 11 plus, like most of the interesting people I know, and those fortunate souls who didn’t have to do the archaic and divisive exam, still championed in our Grammar School, Conservative, borough. No one held out much hope for my academic progress, including my teachers, but reading and English saved me. I managed a decent clutch of low grade exams - enough to do A levels at our local Secondary Modern 6th form. My dream was to work in publishing back then, but the careers lunches organised by the school for 5th and 6th formers involved bankers, accountants and council employees. Not that I have anything against those career choices, not at all. To my mind it showed a lack of imagination and a distinct lack of belief in the ability of the education system to turn out anything more creative. It certainly didn’t encourage any dreamers like me, or people who had practical skills.
I took a year off between school and college, as I couldn’t decide if the pursuit of my dreams would be best served by a degree or work experience. As it turned out, when I applied for jobs as a school leaver, employers wanted qualifications; when I applied as a graduate, they wanted experience. Go figure! This was the 80’s and everything I applied for in the arts pages of the Guardian, or locally, had massive numbers of applicants. I did a variety of things, as graduates often do when they can’t get into their chosen career. I had no one to advise me. I was the first person in my family to go to college and my parents thought earning money should be the main aim in life. Most of the people I knew had sensible jobs in the civil service, the council, teaching or various trades. I did teach English to advance level students, for a short time, but I already knew that wasn’t for me and I wasn’t about to teach because I couldn’t get the job I wanted. In my mind, teaching is a vocation. I was given some advice that I might get into the BBC as a typist and it was probably good advice, but it stirred rebellion in me! I did not do my degree to be a typist. Again, no offence to the millions of competent and high-powered secretarial and PA people out there, I simply knew it would drive me mad. I did go for a clerical job at Richmond library and had to do a typing test as part of the interview. They were mightily impressed with my output, until I told them about the mistakes on the copy which I’d had to correct. I think that blew my chances somewhat. At least by then I was up to 50 words per minute (and only 15 mistakes!)
As for all of us, there were loves and losses in my life, some of them more impacting than others. I won’t bore you. Job-wise, I ended up working for a ski holiday company, a local family firm who’d found a niche in the market. It was good experience, although even back then I wasn’t very good at acquiescing to things I felt weren’t right, good, or sometimes plain daft. I was delighted when, after 18 months I was successful in getting a position in the library service as part of a pilot project to introduce a local computerised information system. In reality, the project didn’t really take off because of the controlling influence of one of the senior librarians, but I was happy to be around books and people and enjoyed my work. I wasn’t so happy with the bullying behaviour of said senior librarian. I’d been bullied enough to last a lifetime, and wasn’t prepared to put up with it in a professional setting; in any setting come to that. Queue my next position. I worked variously at a civil service training centre, in a BT planning office, on a sales and technical desk for a tech company and finally, running my own section supporting bid writing for a major comms company. None of this was taking me any closer to my dream. I’d had quite a few things published, been a runner up in competitions, done some copywriting and worked, briefly, at a magazine, but none of it was really moving me in the right direction. I didn’t exactly give up on my dreams, but as often happens, life took over: marriage, family life, work….My aspirations had become just that - something to aspire to, sometime, somewhen, who knows? Certainly I didn’t.
My life took a different turn altogether, when I won a local cookery competition in the 90’s and re-trained as a chef. I’d been making and decorating cakes for friends and family birthdays for years and switched to this more serious endeavour. My then husband and I had planned to run a restaurant, which then morphed into running a B&B, which then fizzled out altogether. We even looked at a few places. I was pretty disappointed. I applied for a job as a second chef at a local, newly renovated, foodie pub, but when I was offered the position, my then husband decided we couldn’t afford to live on the proceeds and I had to turn it down. So, like many people do, I stayed in my job that paid reasonable money, despite being neither fulfilled nor happy. Cooking and writing very still very much in my life and I had some minor successes.
Cue 40. I’d had enough. My marriage ended and I took the opportunity to re-train, working in the third sector as an advocate for young people with ASD. Now at least I loved my job and got a large helping of satisfaction doing something useful and person-centred, despite being on half the salary I was on previously. It was tough and my health suffered after the various traumas (again, I won’t bore you) but I wish I’d known those sort of jobs existed years before. In 2008 I moved to the Scottish Highlands with my then housemate (now husband) for a new start and was lucky enough to get a similar position, not far from where we relocated. I should highlight, that this at least was one dream come true, as I’d wanted to live in scotland since I first visited in 1983.
Sadly, I was made redundant 18 months in, due to a lack of funding, but I managed to continue in the third sector, running my own projects until 2015. That was a landmark year when I achieved another dream and started my own food business. Looking back, it wasn’t perhaps the wisest decision I ever made, but I don’t regret it. My health, unfortunately, decided it wasn’t going to be supportive of this new venture and within 18 months I was changing tack to make bread for community markets.(18 months seems to be a repetitive timeframe in my journey, I notice!)
We’d settled into the community by this time and were part of a local writing group which was hugely supportive and went on to found, what was back then, The Highland Literary Salon and is now, 14 years on and still going, Highland Lit. We’ve not been part of running the group for a long time, but it was a formative and largely positive experience, which has lead to being involved in various creative endeavours and being part of the supportive and creative Highland writers scene.
Since 2008, I’ve had lots of things published in lots of places and have even done some editing. We set up Ross Cottage Publishing in 2019, essentially to produce our own work and support local writers who need a bit of help getting their books into the world. My cookbook came out that year and still sells really well.
My health hasn’t been a great ally to achieving things, and has deteriorated a lot in the last 15 years. I’m saddled with a clutch of chronic illnesses and a disability. It’s not the life I would choose. Who would? Perhaps I wouldn’t have changed tack and made the decisions I did if I was physically well. There’s no point second-guessing or wishing. The amazing fact is that I’m pretty much living my dream life in my dream place, in spite of everything that’s happened - all those things I would have liked to avoid; all the bad stuff and the difficult stuff.
When I was young, I had no plan, no direction, no route map to get to where I wanted to be. I stumbled from one opportunity to another. There’s no magic recipe to get where you want to and life will always throw junk in the way for you to trip on, but if you can plough on, take those opportunities, despite the difficulties, then quite often you can get to where you want to be, albeit by a circuitous route. There are very rarely shortcuts for the vast majority of us without wealth and connections.
When Covid struck in 2020, along with many other self-employed people, my business hit the deck. I made bread for a few folk locally, but wasn’t able to earn an income. It’s one of the only times in my life I’ve found writing difficult. I found the concentration required almost impossible. Lots of people wrote books during lockdown. I was too jittery, anxious and distracted. I needed something else to occupy me and turned to my lifelong love of painting (art and English were the only things I was reasonable at in school) I started painting to distract myself. There was never any thought of doing anything with it, until that is, friends started to enquire about purchasing pieces. I gave a lot of art away. I was happy to be able to bring a smile and a bit of cheer with my art. My husband took it a lot more seriously and set to work getting me a website set up. I was bemused more than anything. Three years on, I’ve sold over 40 paintings and hundreds of cards. I’m still rather amazed that anyone is prepared to buy my work, though am absolutely delighted. It gives me a lot of joy. It is something I could never have dared think of in my wildest most extravagant dreams - me creating art for money!
I was an under-confident, not terribly bright, working class kid who had a dream. I didn’t actively pursue that dream all the time, but it was always in my heart. I’ve taken opportunities and made some of my own luck. Lots of things have happened that are outwith my control. A lot of the time you really do have to ‘roll with the punches’. Dreams can come true, though not always as we imagine they might.
Let your children be dreamers. Be a dreamer yourself - whatever your dreams may be. It’s never too late.